We're in Ushuaia from December 1st until the 14th, with no real itinerary while we're here. So far we've already been to a penguin colony, a glacier (which taught us a lot of lessons about how fast rain can happen), and a national park. We're exponentially exceeding the ratio between pictures taken and internet upload speed, so it might be a while before we can get a whole bunch of pictures all uploaded, just a few one-offs for now.
Ushuaia is a pretty interesting city. It's clearly a huge tourist destination, so it's pretty apparent that a lot of the city is built around that. There's just one main street, and it's loaded with places to buy hiking gear and stuffed penguins. There's also an area of "little houses" that have all of the buses/boats/helicopters/airplanes that you can take around the area, featuring people trying to convince you that their tour is the best. There's pretty much only two bars in the city, but basically only one that people go to. Of course it's an Irish pub, called The Dublin.
A bit more unexpected, is how big industry is here. Apparently there are crazy taxes on goods that aren't assembled in Argentina, so from what I gather, parts are shipped to Ushuaia (from China I'm guessing?) and then assembled in plants down here, then shipped up throughout Argentina. I'm willing to bet this is just one of many places that does this, but it sounded like starting a plant in Tierra del Fuego has some kind of tax incentive, so Ushuaia in particular has seen a lot of growth. This is all according to our penguin island tour guide, who grew up here, so I'm gonna take him at his word. We have noticed a lot of duty free shops in town, so the tax incentive bit seems to go all the way down to retail.
All of this is nestled in the spot where the Andes meet the ocean, it's hard to imagine not being constantly impressed by the setting. I guess the same can be said for New York City, and we managed that one, so who knows!